Russia

14 months ago, Saudi Arabia had a plan.

That plan involved deliberately suppressing the price of crude in order to bankrupt the US shale complex and put pressure on the Russians who were still clinging to the notion that Bashar al-Assad would remain President of Syria.

Preserving crude market share and securing the “ancillary diplomatic benefits” (to quote The New York Times) of lower oil prices has proven to be a trickier proposition than Riyadh originally imagined.

It all started early last night when the front month oil contract dipped below $28 giving a taste of what was to come. It was all downhill from there.

First Chinese stocks ended the recent ramp higher, with the Shanghai Composite closing down 1% back under 3000, then Japan's rout accelerated with both the Nikkei (-3.7%) and the Topix Index sinking into bear markets, both falling more than 20% from their 2015 highs.

Russian President Valdimir Putin is said to be “pleased” at the idea that Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio might play him in an upcoming movie.  Spokesman Valery Karpov for Russian film production company “Lenfilm” said in a recent interview that they would be interesting in having the US actor for a new film project. Pravdareport.com reports: “It is always interesting to create films. Leonardo DiCaprio is often compared to Lenin in his youth. We have plenty of scenery and props to recreate the era of the revolution,” he said.

Russia have announced plans to develop nuclear weapons that will be capable of saving humanity in the event of asteroids hitting the Earth.  Russian scientists are developing nuclear warheads to deal with the ever-increasing threat of armageddon poised by the giant pieces of space rock. A team of scientists have been asked by an EU-sponsored program, NEOShield, to develop weapons to protect the planet.

One of the great ironies of the Obama administration’s foreign policy record is the extent to which Washington started 2009 with designs on normalizing frosty relations with Russia and started 2015 with the worst US-Russo dynamic since the Cold War.

To be sure, not all of that was Washington’s fault - but most of it was.